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Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Next: Russia Unplugged by Maxim Trudolyubov

Maxim Trudolyubov

Maxim Trudolyubov is an editor and
columnist for Russia’s most influential, independent business daily Vedomosti. On December 7 he wrote an opinion piece
published in the New York Times about the direction he thinks Russia is headed.

He writes

There was a time when we Russians thought of our country as one of those
burgeoning, dynamic places, a land of diamonds in the rough. But today Russia is no longer an emerging nation. Instead,
it’s hiding its face from the world.

As a result of the Kremlin’s own actions, and Western countermeasures,
Russia may gradually find itself cut off from many of its international links, "unplugged” from capital markets, global news media, foreign expertise, and
even the World Wide Web. To stay on top of Russia’s power pyramid, President Vladimir
V. Putin and his minions feel they must corral and tame the
Internet.

Russian news anchors and official commentators are constantly telling us
the outside world is a dangerous place, and the global Internet is increasingly
presented as a vehicle for hostile foreign influence. The Russian Interior
Ministry calls the web “the main channel for the dissemination of destructive
and extremist ideologies.”

President Putin, speaking at a forum organized last spring by his
All-Russia People’s Front, asserted that the Internet initially “emerged as a
special project of the C.I.A.” He also declared that when the Russian Internet
company Yandex was being developed back in the 1990s, it “came under pressure
to hire a certain number of Americans and a certain number of Europeans to its executive
board.” Following those comments, shares in Yandex, the world’s fourth-largest
search engine, lost 16 percent of their value.

Then, last summer, the Parliament passed a law that requires Internet
companies to keep personal data on Russian citizens stored within the country.
The liaison between the government and Internet companies, Dmitry Marinichev,
who was appointed to the newly created post of Internet ombudsman in July, says
the definition of what constitutes “personal data” is unclear.

It is also unclear when the law is to actually take effect. The Kremlin
hasn’t decided, perhaps because the consequences are so uncertain. (Will
Russians be able to use their accounts with Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft
and other foreign companies, which store their customer information on servers
outside the country? Or even apply for a visa, which also involves keeping
one’s personal data on other countries’ servers?)

Another law, already in effect, is much more straightforward. It
requires bloggers whose writing is accessed by more than 3,000 users a day to
register with Internet regulators and comply with the rules and restrictions
that apply to all media. So far, most popular bloggers have been reluctant to
register, and the authorities do not seem to have pressured anyone to do so.

In September, the Russian Security Council discussed the technical
feasibility and economic consequences of cutting Russia off from the global
Internet in times of crisis. The president’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said at
the time that the authorities’ intention would be to protect Russia. “Lately
our partners in the U.S. and Europe have demonstrated some significant share of
unpredictable behavior,” he said. “That is why we have to be ready for
anything.”

In any case, the Russian authorities have been late in the game of
curtailing Internet access. Before a surge in street protests three years ago
caused Mr. Putin to recognize the importance of the web, he used to dismiss it
as “half pornography.” In China, by contrast, the Communist government
recognized the Internet’s potential power right away. “If you open the window
for fresh air,” Deng Xiaoping used to say, “you have to expect some flies to
blow in.” Guided by these words, the authorities developed the so-called Great
Firewall of China and other measures to control the flow of information.

But the information revolution came to Russia during the laissez-faire
atmosphere of the 1990s, when fortune-making seemed more important than
controlling public opinion. Though Russia is still integrated in the global
markets, still hosts a lot of international organizations, and still has a
mostly free and full connection to the global web, its ties with the outside
world are fraying badly.

This was clearly illustrated in news reports of Mr. Putin cutting an
awkward figure at the recent Group of 20 summit meeting in Brisbane, Australia.
Angered by criticism over Russian actions in Crimea and Ukraine, Mr. Putin left
in a tiff, saying he had to get some sleep before attending to urgent affairs
at home.

It seems as if Russia, which was suspended from the Group of 8 after the
Kremlin annexed Crimea, is no longer a member in good standing in the Group of
20 either. Getting the cold shoulder doesn’t seem to bother our president that
much, though. Speaking in July at a meeting of the Russian Security Council
(and apparently forgetting that Russia is still a member of several
international organizations, such as the Commonwealth of Independent States and
the Shanghai Cooperation Organization), he declared: “Thank God Russia is not
part of any alliances,” adding, “This, in no small measure, is the guarantee of
our sovereignty.”

Nevertheless, the collective Western browbeating in Brisbane did not
produce any immediate results, apart from further isolating the Russian leader
abroad and giving him some additional clout at home. But the Group of 20
meeting may prove to be a symbolic milestone on the path to unplugging Russia
from world networks.

Mr. Putin will be seeing less of Western leaders. Russian companies will
be getting less foreign investment. State-owned banks are increasingly cut off
from the Western capital markets. Many ordinary Russians are no longer able to
go abroad because the sharp decline in the value of the ruble has made foreign
travel prohibitively expensive.

Backed by a considerable segment of Russian society, Moscow’s leaders
are slamming the door on the world. This anger is puerile and misplaced. The
West has played its role in antagonizing Russia, too, but my country bears the
larger part of the blame. A new, vengeful isolationism has prevailed in Moscow.